Tips for GCSEs

this picture doesn't belong to me but every other picture attached in this post is mine :)

 Hello there!! I'm so glad to be back with a post, finally!!

Today, I will be discussing multiple tips and I say "tips" because they are quite broad. 

So, for the uninitiated, I am preparing for my GCSEs later this year. So GCSEs or in my case, IGCSEs is a set of exams you take for Year 11/Grade 10 at around the age of 15-16. These exams are very important for those taking them because they prove what subject you will take for A levels that further allows you to enter a university. 

Anyways, I will be discussing many tips that I madly scribbled on the back of my study planner whenever I got a new tip. I've researched loads and so I really hope all these tips benefit you. 

This post will be seperated into small sections of the following:

• Study essentials and a little dip into study planners
• Generic study tips
• How to plan a study session
• How to have a proper study break
• How you must use past papers

Study essentials:

• Pens/Pencils/Eraser/Sharpners/Highlighters

• Sticky notes – this is for writing to-dos/goals and topics needed to work on.

• Calender – Mark all important dates here

• Computer/Laptop/iPad – of course this isn't an essential all the time but this is good to have during a study session instead of your phone.
• Google drive – or any other space with all your resources

• Journal/Study Planner – this is where you will write everything you've completed and where you will write to-do lists and schedules

As promised, I will dip a little into what I look for in a study planner. If you do not have a proper study planner, a regular notebook will suffice as a a journal.

In here, you will note down all your goals and daily to-do/done lists. You may include weak spots in your studies and things you need to focus on. 

This helps mainly because having tangible things where you have written things ensure that things aren't just rattling in your brain but actually down somewhere you can refer back to. 

Study Tips:

This section is mainly for IGCSE specific revision.

Making notes and questions:

• Making notes is a wonderful method of storing information for later use however, it is not an effective revision method. This is not because note-taking is wrong, it is the method of note-taking that is faulty. I will get back to this later.

Personally, I find note-taking amazing because I can review notes later. So, how do I make notes?

• Take your source material. This can be a text book, a video, other external notes and open your syllabus with the topic you are note taking for. This way, you can refine your notes and make them as concise as possible so that you are not wasting too much time on this. 
• If you are taking notes on a computer or a notebook, make sure you are highlighting keywords and writing these definitions either in the begining of the notes or the end.

Remember how I said that note-taking is not revision? 

This is because it is just like you are just transferring information from one source to another. A way to make your notes more active is to take your notes and make questions out of each point in a way that you may be questioned during an exam. 

Now create a mark scheme for this set of questions you have made and re-read your notes. 

After a few days, return to these questions WITHOUT reading your notes. Write all the answers and correct your answers with the mark scheme to fill your knowledge gaps.

 

Finally, take all the answers that you were unable to attempt or got wrong and make little flashcards out of them. 

You may be wondering why I told you to make questions instead of taking topical past paper questions immediately (which by the way is a marvelous way of active revision) and this is because you would like to save these for later use. If you find question making difficult, you may resort to AI by giving it your Syllabus and topic and asking it to generate questions. 

Making flashcards and using them:

Flashcards is another amazing way to do revision. Honestly, everyone has their own way of making flashcards but I'll share how I utilise them. 

So, I use little index cards where I write the keyword/question on one side and the definition/answer on the other side. This is one of the most common ways to make flashcards, so completely unoriginal...

I use my flashcards at alotted time when I prefer to stay away from screens, so generally before bed or when on a road trip (yes those around you will think of you as a complete nerd but who cares).

When doing revision with flashcards, make sure you try to answer the question yourself before flipping it around and reading it again.

Past papers

If you have had teachers through Year 10/Year 11, you would've heard them stress about past papers saying that you must do as many of them as you can. The truth is, while it does give you a good sense of what the exam may feel like it is not going to help you to simply mindlessly do solve them and leave it at that. 

(this is completely different for essay based subjects like English where it is the only method of doing questions)

So, I will share with you a recent method I've started adopting while solving past papers to remain intentional.

1. When you solve past papers, do them in exam conditions. Take a clear pouch with an eraser, sharpner, pencil, black pen, highlighters, and calculator if required, and sit on a clear flat surface. Do not listen to white noise while you are at it because while you are at the exam, you will not be provided with this. Time yourself. 
2. Once you've answered all the questions, find the mark scheme and pretend you are an examiner. Correct it with a red pen and give yourself marks for each question, highlighting all your mistakes or unattempted questions. (For essay based questions, hand it in to your teacher or some kind of AI that can correct it for you and give structured feedback and store the feedback.)
3. Now make a spreadsheet out of all your mistakes, highlighting why you went wrong and how many marks you lost and if you understood it now. If it is possible, make flashcards out of these questions.

Study session:

• I will always advise you to plan what you will be studying the night before in your journal. While you plan this, keep all resources handy. For example, I use a tablet to solve all my past papers. So, the night before, I download the paper and send it to my tablet, ready for the next day.
• The next day, schedule when you will be doing everything because this can aid you to be flexible with your time and your moods. 
• When the time of your study session starts arriving, prepare yourself. I would say, start 15 minutes before you start studying. 
• Change your clothes into something that makes you feel smart, clear your table so only your resources remain, open all your resources, shut off your phone. About the phone, you can start recording yourself on a time lapse or simply just shut it down. 
• Now, I'll tell you something you've probably never heard of before and that is a "yap sheet" that is just what the name suggests: a sheet where you yap. This sheet remains beside you while you study and any time you remember something mid session, you write it down on the sheet. This can be a task that you need to complete and just remembered so you do not have to carry the thought in your head.
• I would recommend you to use the pomodoro method, where you study for an allotted time and break mid way for a short amount of time. 

Study Breaks:

Study breaks are as important as study sessions because they help you stay sharpened. There is an analogy that goes something like, "If the woodcutter were to stop sawing, sharpen his saw, and go back to cutting the tree with a sharp blade, he would actually save time and effort in the long run." This is because he is essentially wasting time cutting without a break because his saw keeps getting blunt. 

One thing, I will say is that during a study break, do not, by all means, scroll on social media. Just do NOT. Scrolling on social media is debilitating your brain's capacity, making you return to your work completely exhaused mentally. 

I will give you a few alternatives that can keep you relaxed but return fresh. 

• Stretching/Exercise/Walking – this helps blood flow and reopens your mind.
• Showering – this is extremely relaxing and will have you feeling much fresher.
• Reading a short story – this might seem odd to add but a short story is much better than reading parts of a novel.
• Watch and educational YouTube video – this must be long form and not many short videos
• Laying down, doing absolutely nothing – this is quite an absurd idea but many people reach for their phones. But remaining on your back with your eyes closed can help relax you fully without draining you. If you can take quick cat naps, go ahead but if you cannot, make sure you do not fall asleep.
• Grab a snack (I will always get tea!!)
• Do some planning

That is it for this blog post and I hope you found it beneficial. I will update you with another post on time management and health depending if I have time. I really hope you took something away from this that will aid you with getting all those grades you deserve. Please comment if you liked this or want specific advice and I'll see you in the next post.

Until next time, 

Naba

xx